The Plow-Woman Part 52

Marylyn saw that she was dispirited, and increased in tenderness toward her, following her about with eyes that entreated, yet were not sad. At breakfast she spitted the choicest cuts for Dallas. In the noon heat, she was at her elbow with a dipper of ginger-beer. And supper coaxed the elder girl's failing appet.i.te by offerings of tasty stew, white flour dumplings and pone. As for herself, Marylyn needed neither urging nor tidbits. She ate heartily. Her sleep was a rest for both body and mind.

Every afternoon she strolled across the bend to the cottonwoods. The b.u.t.terflies fared beside her. Overhead, between sun and earth, hung legions of gra.s.shoppers, like a haze. Underfoot, bluebell and sunflower nodded. And the grove was a place for dreams!

And Dallas--was a wild thing that cannot tell of its wound.

She uttered no complaint, even to Simon. The outburst that followed Lounsbury's return was her first and last. She questioned now if her suffering justified a lament. In this, she resembled her mother. A woman, coming to the section-house one torrid day, remarked wonderingly that Mrs. Lancaster gave "nary a whimper." The latter looked up with a smile. "I don't think I'm sick enough," she said. "Other people, worse off, have a right to groan." Dallas, certain that Marylyn's heartache was the keener, would not be behindhand in restraint. And her sister's happiness, forethought, and desire to please, all drove the thrust of penitence to the hilt, and turned the knife in that secret wound.

She found no solace in Marylyn's friends of the calico covers. Her thoughts were too tempestuous for that. They were like milling cattle.

Around and around they tore, mingling and warring, but stilling in the end to follow the only course--self-denial. Once so rebellious, she was growing meek at last--meek and full of contrition. She was coming to dwell more too, on the lessons that the evangelist had taught her: She was coming to think of leaning where David Bond had leaned--she, who had always been a prop.

There was the old terror that had stalked beside her down to her mother's death. She had fought her way with it, and the conflict had given her strength. There was the jealousy that had smirched her sister-love. She had fought it, too, and bitterly, scorning it because she knew it for a hateful inheritance. Now was come a third misery, and the worst. She saw herself as a traitor. This was not mere reproach. It was the torture of a stricken conscience.

Her face grew thin, her hand unsteady, her eyes wore a hunted look. At night, hers were the scalding tears that dampened the pillow.

And so the days went by. Whatever pangs of remorse, whatever longing she endured, she remained faithful to the resolution that she would not give way to temptation again. But every night brought the lonely watcher to the swale.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE END OF A DREAM

The dark of the moon was come.

All that day the sun had baked, and the steady south blow had been like the draught of an oven. As evening came, brushing a glory of red from the sky, the wind quickened, instead of lulling, and fetched up clouds that rested on the ridge-tops and roofed the wide valley. Through these not a star showed. But now and then, for an instant, the post sprang into sight out of the blackness to the weird play of the heat-lightning.

In the stockade there was perfect quiet--a quiet tense with excitement.

Secrecy forbade any strong-heart songs and dances. Caution advised against mosquito fires. And suspense did away with drumming, shrill laughter, and feast-shout. The aged men, the women, and the children kept close within their lodges, where they whispered and nodded, nose to nose. The warriors stayed outside, preserving their calm with kinnikinick. In the dark, the open bowls of their scattered pipes were so many ruddy glow-worms.

From the pitchy shelter of the shingle roof, Squaw Charley looked out.

He sat on his heels, about him the few mangy dogs that had not found the dinner-pot. One of these stirred. Half rising, he gave it a kick, just as one of his brothers might have done. Then he squatted again, and through the ragged strands of his bang, his black eyes sparkled eagerly.

For, of late, every warrior's lodge had seen secret flesh-painting; under every warrior's blanket were hidden gaudy tracings of vermilion, scarlet, orange, and blue; and was he not painted, too!

He had sought in an ash-pile for coals; found a beef bone and snapped it for marrow; next, taken from his worn pouch a lump of red earth. He had rubbed the coals to powder in a square of rag, after which he had mixed the powder and the grease to make a paste. Then, he had pulled off his mourning blanket and his squaw's shirt, and bared his body to the waist.

Vermilion, orange, scarlet, and blue--these colours had been laid in stripes, circles, and figures upon the braves. They were colours that he, an outcast, might not use. But there was one poor privilege in flesh-painting that even he could claim. Kneeling again in clout and squaw's skirt, he had smeared the black and red in rude signs upon his chest. The braves, his brothers, had painted themselves for battle. But he, the pariah, had painted himself in the colours of death.

Suddenly he forsook the roof for the shadow of the log wall. There he waited. Two warriors had left the lodge of Brown Mink and were crossing the pen. He knew them. The shorter was Canada John, the eldest of the four condemned. The other was a Sioux who had been captured that day and cast into prison at sunset. He was a giant in stature, wore full war paint and dress, and a belt that testified his valour. For it hung thick with scalps, some jetty and coa.r.s.e,--taken from heads of his own kind,--some brown or fair, with the softness that belongs to the hair of white women and little children. The two were talking low together.

Presently, as they strolled near, the outcast heard the deep murmur of their voices; then their words. He leaned toward them, all ears.

"How many sleeps before the dove calls?" It was the ba.s.s of the stranger.

"Perhaps only another," answered Canada John.

There was a great laugh, like the cry of a full-fed loon. "Surely Big Ox stays not long! But how can my friends be sure that The Double-Tongue will have horses ready?"

"He claims a reward."

"Ho! Ho! and what?"

Canada John halted close to Squaw Charley. "There is a cottonwood lodge beyond the river," he said. "It should belong to The Double-Tongue. He is kept out. An old pale-face and his two daughters seized it in the Moon of Wild Cherries, and they would not go."

"An old man, you say?"

"But he hunts the white buffalo. Only the daughters are there."

"Are they young?"

"Young and sleek. One is called The Plow-Woman. She is tall, and she watches like the antelope. The younger has hair like the gra.s.s when it is withered."

"They live alone?"

"The Squaw guards----"

"Wuff!"

"And The Man-who-buys-Skins. May he be struck by the zigzag fire!"

"Who is to have the women?"

Canada John scratched his nose. "The Medicine-Giver says, 'He that first reaches them.'"

Big Ox shook his head in doubt. "The swiftest may yet fail to keep."

"Should any pursue, the women will be killed. The soldiers will think them bit by rattlesnakes."

Again Big Ox burst forth with laughter.

"Sh!"

A hammer clicked from the stockade top. A sentry began to bawl angrily.

"Git, you pup-eaters," he ordered, and slanted his gun to them. Casting dignity aside, they ducked into the nearest lodge.

Squaw Charley dragged himself back to the shingle roof. There he fell p.r.o.ne, resting his forehead against the ribs of a dog. The strength was gone from his body, the light from his eyes. The wind of that other's nostrils had blasted him. He was like the scattering ash-heaps of the evening smudges, where the last bit of fuel was crumbled, and the last red coal was dead.

Long, he stayed upon his face. When the first numbness was past, and his brain was rallying slowly, a very scourge of sorrow visited him--sorrow for the fate of the shack, where he had warmed himself so often, relieved his hunger, and known a kindly smile. With sorrow came remorse.

He had not done his part for the little home. He had not guarded as he ought. And he had helped by bringing rattlesnakes--which he had been told were to be used for medicine--in the plot for its destruction. When sorrow and remorse had their turn, a stronger pa.s.sion gnawed and racked him. It was the yearning for reinstatement.

Dwelling upon this, he became two Indians, and one of him opposed the other. They travelled separate trails--trails that bent different ways, like the horns of a buffalo. The trail to the right was a warpath. It led him behind his brothers, through the hole in the stockade. For a while he loitered, loath to share in the work on the Bend. Afterward, he joined them. They were free, and crazy with their freedom. He matched his strength with theirs; dared where they faltered; won--won----

But there was no hope for The Plow-Woman!

He was back on the other trail, and it led to the gallery where Oliver's hammock swung. The outcast made swift motions with his hands. He was hustled along with the guard. The sliding-panel opened. The tent-flaps of Brown Mink's lodge were lifted. He was caught in a mad onrush; he was howled at; spat upon. Finally, a bruised, exiled traitor, more despised, if possible, than before, he fled skulking away.

And here was no hope for his honour!

He was back at the parting of the trails, one man again, helpless before the knowledge that safety for the shack meant the wiping out forever of his dream of becoming a brave.